What about the workers? Few people in the workforce have ever seen a squeeze on their spending power like this, writes BBCDouglasF
The Scottish Trades Union Congress has its 125th conference this week with a strong negotiating hand but weakness in membership and legal powers, highlighted by the sackings at P&O Ferries.
The first group seized the opportunity of the shortage of drivers to demand higher pay, and rises came in around 12%. Few people in the workforce have ever seen a squeeze on their spending power like this. Inflation in the 1970s led to a spiral of wage demands, in which unions with the most clout were able to drive up pay, thus fuelling price increases to a peak of 25%.
That might be the theory. It's not working out that way. The Scottish Trades Union Congress meets in Aberdeen this week for its 125th annual conference, and its agenda does not have a triumphalist tone.P&O refused to negotiate with the unions, instead sacking workers and hiring agency staff University teachers are fighting four battles in one; pensions, pay, hours and temporary contracts. They're not making much progress, but likely to focus their attention on the exam season, which is when they have some leverage.In Scotland, ballots of teachers and local authority workers have rejected pay offers well below the rate of price inflation.
There are successes for union members to celebrate, and a notable one comes through smart use of the law in Glasgow. Local authorities fund most residential care places on the assumption that private providers will pay little more than minimum wage and the minimum level of pension, while funding their own care homes more generously.According to Linda Somerville, STUC deputy general secretary, the outline shape of the National Care Service is not like the National Health Service, even if it is intended to command a similar level of public support.
In the private sector, membership is below 17% of the workforce. That part is dominated by sectors that used to be in the public sector, such as buses, trains, power companies and colleges. The oil and gas sector also has a union presence, and it wants to be heard in Aberdeen this week in slowing the pace of the transition to greener energy.
Melanie Simms, professor of work and employment at Glasgow University, says that as young people typically move on from less formal retail and hospitality jobs, they are as likely as any age group to be union members in the sectors with higher membership reach. That is true across countries.Many workers in the so-called gig economy are unlikely to be unionised
Older professional workers are only becoming aware of this when their kids join the labour market, says Simms, and some of them can be stunned by what is required: "Being rung at 6 o'clock at night to turn up at 6.30.
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